Читать книгу Seventy-Two Virgins - Boris Johnson - Страница 10
Оглавление‘Whose ambulance did you say it was?’ asked Deputy Assistant Commissioner Purnell, who was, today, in charge of anti-terrorist and security operations throughout the Metropolis.
Grover entered the room with an air of satisfaction. ‘What did I tell you? We’ve got it. An ambulance from the Bilston and Willenhall NHS Trust was seen at the Travelodge in Dunstable at one a.m.’
‘Good. And it’s still there, is it?’
‘Er, no. It left.’
‘Aha.’
‘We’re on the case.’
A second later, he was back again. ‘I’ve got Bluett on the line.’
The two London policemen looked at each other. They knew – or strongly suspected – that the Americans were tuning in to their frequencies.
‘Put him through,’ said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Purnell.
He listened with half-closed eyes to the American’s demands.
‘You want a sniper on the roof of the Commons? What did you say his name was?’ On a piece of headed notepaper Purnell printed ‘PICKLE’. Then he crossed it out and wrote ‘PICKEL’.
‘I see, yes,’ he said, ‘I see, yes.’
He listened some more, and then said: ‘Well, I can understand if the First Lady is a bit anxious but … Right you are. Colonel … Okeycokey, chum. Yep. See you later, I expect … No, no, everything else is, um, fine. We have no evidence of anything, you know, untoward.’
He disconnected with a groan.
‘They want a sniper on the roof of the Commons, above New Palace Yard. I’ve said we’ll oblige. Someone answering to this name will be presenting himself in a few minutes. Whatever happens, I am not having him sitting up there alone.’
He handed over the sheet of paper. ‘And I want the choppers to start scanning Westminster for this flaming ambulance.’
High above Soho a Metropolitan Police Twin Squirrel Eurocopter AS 355N banked and turned down Shaftesbury Avenue.
It passed directly over the head of Roger Barlow, who looked up and felt vaguely resentful. Why did they hover in that threatening way over innocent streets? It was like some dreary lefty movie about Thatcher’s Britain.
Then he continued to thread his way through the cars. That’s what he loved about bicycles: the autonomy, the ability to put your wheel wherever you chose. As you looked over the handlebars you could see your front tyre as a snub-nosed cylinder, nosing at will down the open streets of London. He passed an Evening Standard hoarding, announcing full coverage of the state visit.
Uh-oh. The Standard. He had forgotten about the Standard. How would he stop his wife seeing that one?
The traffic was getting heavier. Now he understood. It was the exclusion zone. The American security people had insisted on a total ban on traffic in the area to be honoured by their presence, and the result was that a freeborn Englishman could not even move down the Queen’s highway.
‘Strewth,’ he cursed, and used a disabled ramp to mount the pavement. He knew he shouldn’t do it, but there you go. In any case, his political career might be over by tomorrow morning.
Then he was back on the road again, watching the shimmer starting to rise from the hot bonnets of the backed-up traffic, and thugga thugga whok whok the helicopter was ceasing to impinge on his consciousness.
